SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I believe I’ve seen this question (or something similar here before) and I’m always intrigued by what people think.

My personal opinion — I don’t believe infidelities are equal. They all hurt and they all break trust, but the impact and the meaning behind them can be completely different depending on the situation.

Some A’s are short, impulsive lapses during a personal crisis. Others involve years of lying, emotional attachment, secrecy and severe gaslighting.

A few things that make a huge difference:

Duration — a one-night stand is not the same as a LTA or full blown double-life.

Depth of deception — hiding something is one thing; gaslighting, blame-shifting, or involving other people is another.

Emotional involvement — some A’s are purely physical; others involve deep attachment, maybe future-planning.

Risk-taking — unprotected sex, bringing the affair partner into shared spaces, financial spending, etc.

Their behavior during the A — some become cold, cruel, or distant, while others hide in shame.

Patterns — was this a one-time crisis, or have they cheated before.

I do think the biggest factor is who they become after discovery. That usually tells you more about the viability of reconciliation than the A itself. Are they taking responsibility and accountability, being transparent, doing the work, and showing empathy? Or are they defensive, minimizing, or hoping time alone will fix things?

Everyone’s threshold for pain, trauma, forgiveness, and rebuilding is different. Some people can work through even a LTA if the betrayer becomes accountable and truly changes. Others can’t move past even a "smaller" betrayal because it clashes with their values, boundaries and nervous system.

So no — infidelity isn’t equal. The betrayal might be universal, but how it affects you, what it reveals about the relationship, and what path you take afterward is deeply individual.

I think Ink Hulk has a valuable insight that people don’t come to an infidelity forum if we are "ok" with whatever our partner is doing.

That said

"But if that was the case I don’t know why an affair upset me as much as it did as my WH has always been a liar and he really was very low in emotional intelligence."

I am really sorry this poster went through this…

For me it was the fact that FWH was a serial liar and cheater who hit the jackpot of willing cheater partners on the internet. I should have ended things the first time I caught him in a lie. It told me all I needed to know about him.

So maybe it’s that all cheaters are not "equal" and that is the driver for their actions.

IIRC, the very first thread I started here was about whether or not I should feel lucky that my wife only had a ONS. I'd already read from other betrayed spouses about LTAs, multiple affairs, and other nightmares that were far worse than what I was dealing with. There is certainly some truth to this. However...

No matter what the circumstances, I can say with relative certainly that the betrayal of infidelity hits everyone harder than anything they've ever experienced before. It's all of the charts. In that respect, all infidelity equally sucks ass.

Duration — a one-night stand is not the same as a LTA or full blown double-life.

I will agree with this only with certain conditions. A ONS that happened after a night of drinking resulting in intoxication where the person was not in full control of their mind and/or decision making could be the one exception. It cannot be "I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing" type of excuse that happens more than once.

A ONS to me is as big a red flag as an "affair". The propensity to have it happen more than once is increased IMO because it is justified by the cheater as "it doesn’t mean anything". Because it doesn’t.

I get where you’re coming from for sure and I’ll try to elaborate a bit more of what I meant by that initial comment.

I think a lot of a ONS depends on context, self-reflection, and whether it was an actual one-off or part of a bigger pattern.

For me, a ONS doesn’t automatically get a free pass just because alcohol was involved. Being drunk can explain impaired judgment, but it doesn’t erase the choice that led them into that situation in the first place. And you’re right: the whole "I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing" line loses credibility if it’s something that happens repeatedly. Once is a mistake; more than once is a pattern.

I don’t think every *true* ONS is equal to an ongoing A, but I do think both are serious breaches. A ONS can still be a huge red flag, especially if it’s minimized as "it didn’t mean anything." That attitude is dangerous because it lowers the internal barrier to repeat behaviour.

I do believe if it’s a one-time, deeply remorseful ONS under intoxication that it *might* be the rare exception, although it still causes a significant breach of trust and damage to the foundation of the relationship.

It’s definitely not automatically less harmful or less concerning than an A. The potential for repeat behaviour depends entirely on how seriously the person takes the fallout, the accountability they show, and what they do afterward to understand why they made that choice.